Congrats to all our finalists, thank you to all 38 amazing designers who submitted and see you next year!

Emily Fischer's Soft-Maps (quilted blankets patterned after city maps) was our double whammy, overall winner in two categories for 2009

Designs Posted: 38 of 38(consider this the number of designers with booths set up)Designs Received: 114(consider this the number that would like to have a booth)Pageviews: 282,418(consider this the number of eyeballs passing by the booths so far)

Thank you so much for all your feedback to our survey post last month. This month we’re putting out the call for great, new designs by independent and student designers that promise to make our homes more beautiful and inspiring places to live.

We’ll post the best submissions, allow the readers to vote and then give six finalists an unprecedented chance to feature their design and themselves by building their own original post on our site during prime time in September. Interested? Keep going...

Two winners will then be chosen (1 judge favorite and 1 crowd favorite) and awarded an even bigger opportunity with $20k worth of ad placements during the fall season on our sites and in our daily email, which they can use to get themselves and their designs in front of our audience of over three million monthly readers.

As winners, the lucky two will also know that they have been highly regarded not only by our readers, but by our judges, who we will be announcing on Friday, August 14th.

If ever there was an amazing opportunity to give your elevator pitch, this is it!

Note: Voting for each submission is open for 36 hours

Who Can Enter?• Independent & student designers from all over the world • Design couples and teams are welcome

We're looking for folks who need exposure and a big push to get them to the next level. Already designing for a big company? That's okay, but send us stuff you're doing on the side. We want to help you, not the big company.

What Designs Are Eligible?• One original design that has reached prototype stage or beyond• No designs are eligible that have been purchased or licensed to commercial manufacturers or distributors. If you've been able to manufacture it yourself, that's fine.• Designs can be for home furnishings, accessories, lighting, appliances or textiles

If it goes into the home, we're open to it. It can be decor, furnishing or materials related, just don't send us a car design.

What To Submit?• Your name and contact info• Short description with materials and potential price• Image of design drawing • Three photographs of prototype or finished product (This is important. You must have taken it at least to prototype stage.)• One photograph of yourself (Feel free to look like as important as you feel).

Give us your best pitch, and your clearest product shots. Remember that first impressions are the most important.

Dates & Deadlines?• Submissions accepted until August 24th• Submissions posted from August 12th-September 2nd• Finalists notified on September 8th• Finalists posted from September 14th-18th

The early birds will get the worm. We won't be able to post everyone, and are currently reserving 20 37 slots in August and September. We'll notify you if we post you or if we don't, and reserve the right to decide editorially whether or not a submission is strong enough to share with the crowd.

Note on VotingThough you are allowed to ask your friends and family to vote, only one vote is allowed per person. If we find that any voting has been hacked and that one person has voted numerous times, we reserve the right to either throw out the votes we can identify or discount the submission entirely.

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Maxwell left teaching in 2001 to start Apartment Therapy as a design business helping people to make their homes more beautiful, organized AND healthy. The website started up in 2004 with the help of his brother, Oliver.